Heller Decision Probably This Week

Get ready. 

No Supreme Court Second Amendment Opinion (in D.C. v. Heller) Today: Looks like it will be coming down Wednesday or Thursday.

For whatever it’s worth, SCOTUSblog’s Tom Goldstein reports that “The only opinion remaining from the March sitting is Heller. The only Justice without a majority opinion from that sitting is Justice Scalia.” Since usually each Justice is assigned at least one majority opinion per sitting, that’s something of a sign that Justice Scalia is likely to write the majority opinion in Heller. But it’s of course far from certain, for a variety of reasons.

1. Let’s hope that SCOTUS completely ignored the Bush Administration’s argument.

   Posted by dad29 on June 23, 2008 at 2004 hrs




2. I do hope that Scalia votes to uphold the ban, since, as he said about Boumediene, more guns on the street “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”

   Posted by folkbum on June 23, 2008 at 2111 hrs




3. folkbum,

   You lie.  Here is the quote to which you refer:

   America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad: 241 at the Marine barracks in Lebanon, 19 at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, 224 at our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and 17 on the USS Cole in Yemen. See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 60–61, 70, 190 (2004). On September 11, 2001, the enemy brought the battle to American soil, killing 2,749 at the Twin Towers in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C., and 40 in Pennsylvania. See id., at 552, n. 9. It has threatened further attacks against our homeland; one need only walk about buttressed and barricaded Washington, or board a plane anywhere in the country, to know that the threat is a serious one. Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last week, 13 of our countrymen in arms were killed.

   The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed. That consequence would be tolerable if necessary to preserve a time-honored legal principle vital to our constitutional Republic. But it is this Court’s blatant abandonment of such a principle that produces the decision today. The President relied on our settled precedent in Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U. S. 763 (1950), when he established the prison at Guantanamo Bay for enemy aliens. Citing that case, the President’s Office of Legal Counsel advised him “that the great weight of legal authority indicates that a federal district court could not properly exercise habeas jurisdiction over an alien detained at [Guantanamo Bay].” Memorandum from Patrick F. Philbin and John C. Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorneys General, Office of Legal Counsel, to William J. Haynes II, General Counsel, Dept. of Defense (Dec. 28, 2001). Had the law been otherwise, the military surely would not have transported prisoners there, but would have kept them in Afghanistan, transferred them to another of our foreign military bases, or turned them over to allies for detention. Those other facilities might well have been worse for the detainees themselves.

   In the long term, then, the Court’s decision today accomplishes little, except perhaps to reduce the well-being of enemy combatants that the Court ostensibly seeks to protect. In the short term, however, the decision is devastating. At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield. See S. Rep. No. 110–90, pt. 7, p. 13 (2007) (Minority Views of Sens. Kyl, Sessions, Graham, Cornyn, and Coburn) (hereinafter Minority Report). Some have been captured or killed. See ibid.; see also Mintz, Released Detainees Rejoining the Fight, Washington Post, Oct. 22, 2004, pp. A1, A12. But others have succeeded in carrying on their atrocities against innocent civilians. In one case, a detainee released from Guantanamo Bay masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese dam workers, one of whom was later shot to death when used as a human shield against Pakistani commandoes. See Khan & Lancaster, Pakistanis Rescue Hostage; 2nd Dies, Washington Post, Oct. 15, 2004, p. A18. Another former detainee promptly resumed his post as a senior Taliban commander and murdered a United Nations engineer and three Afghan soldiers. Mintz, supra. Still another murdered an Afghan judge. See Minority Report 13. It was reported only last month that a released detainee carried out a suicide bombing against Iraqi soldiers in Mosul, Iraq. See White, Ex-Guantanamo Detainee Joined Iraq Suicide Attack, Washington Post, May 8, 2008, p. A18.

   His comment had nothing to do with guns on the street.

   Posted by Owen on June 23, 2008 at 2136 hrs




4. His comment had nothing to do with guns on the street.

   I didn’t say it did, Owen.  I said “it will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed” was his standard for voting as he did in Boumediene.  And since more guns in DC will lead to more deaths of more Americans, I expect Scalia to vote to uphold the ban, given his precedent.

   Posted by folkbum on June 24, 2008 at 0511 hrs




5. more guns in DC will lead to more deaths of more Americans

   I’d love to see what facts you have to support this conclusion.

   Posted by Jed on June 24, 2008 at 0516 hrs




6. Jed beat me too it, I’d like to see that claim backed up too folkbum.

   Posted by on June 24, 2008 at 0803 hrs




7. Actually, if folkblum would bother to get facts, such as More guns less crime by John Lott, btw who is not a gun owner and has no desire to be one at last report. Folk would find that more guns IN THE HANDS OF LAW ABIDING CITIZENS actually reduces violent crime. This might be a good thing since DC has the highest violent crime rate, per capita, in the country and close to tops in the world.

   Posted by on June 24, 2008 at 1910 hrs




8. For further elucidation:
   Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 937–39 (1997) (quoting 3 Commentaries Sec. 1890, p. 746 (1833)). Justice Scalia, in extra–judicial writing, has sided with the individual rights interpretation of the Amendment.

   Posted by on June 24, 2008 at 1916 hrs




9. Hmmm still nothing do these things go late or ??

   Posted by on June 24, 2008 at 1958 hrs




10. There’s an irony in Marie’s chastising me for lacking “facts” and then her citing of the notorious liar and fraud John Lott (Marie, google the name “Mary Rosh” to learn just how deceitful Lott can be).  Lott’s thesis in More Guns, Less Crime has been refuted time and again, and he refuses to release much of his own data to be checked by other scientists.

    And then Marie also says that “DC has the highest violent crime rate, per capita, in the country and close to tops in the world.” This is another untruth.  DC has a lower per capita violent crime rate (2006 data) than 17 other cities, including near-neighbor Baltimore, which is at #9 on the list.  Yet and still, DC saw 181 murders in 2007, more than 3/4 of them by gun, and non-fatal gun crimes accounted for literally thousands more victims.  In 2007 alone, DC police confiscated nearly 3000 illegal guns--guns used in crimes or guns that could have been.

    The last thing the city needs is more guns on those streets.  Scalia, scared robeless that innocent random Muslims arrested and flown to Gitmo to settle personal grudges might get a single hearing in court, doesn’t seem to care about DC’s efforts to control the terror on its own streets.  What a big man.

    Posted by folkbum on June 24, 2008 at 2224 hrs




11. DC police confiscated nearly 3000 illegal guns

    Keyword there is ILLEGAL, how would allowing responsible citizens to exercise their rights by owning a handgun increase the crime rate? Please back up your claims folkbum. I hear this argument over and over again but no one ever backs it up.

    BTW the ruling hasn’t been released yet. So you are jumping the gun, so to speak, a bit there folkbum.

    Posted by on June 24, 2008 at 2250 hrs




12. "The problem is that illegal firearms are more often found amoung criminals.” - Anders Perklev, Swedish Justice Ministry spokesman

    It appears folkbum isn’t the only logic challenged leftist out there, some have risen to even more prominent positions.

    Posted by on June 25, 2008 at 1353 hrs




13. Owen, after you quoted that long screed from Scalia, I think you might be interested to know that he based that part of his decision on DoD lies and urban legends.

    Posted by folkbum on June 25, 2008 at 2227 hrs